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Tag: academic freedom

Michelle Deutchman Featured at University of Pittsburgh Academic Senate Plenary

University of Pittsburgh University Times

March 21, 2025

Presented By: 

About the Institute

No matter your role within a college or university we all must contend with external forces endeavoring to influence the direction of the institution. These pressures include legislative efforts to undermine academic freedom and the protections that tenure provides, advocacy groups wielding the threat of a lawsuit, and donors who use financial incentives to exert control. These factors often result in a chilling effect on expression and dialogue, which is just beginning to be documented, and the ability to teach and learn in a productive environment.

“Advancing the Mission of Higher Education in a Polarized Environment” will take place on October 26-27 at or near the University of California – Irvine. The four sessions “Mission and Public Good,” “Academic Freedom,” “Legal and Political Threats,” and “Strategically Navigating the Current Climate,” will be facilitated by experts in the field and will be dynamic and interactive (see below for details).

If selected, participants’ costs for travel, lodging and meals will be covered.

Who Should Apply

This institute will bring together legal counsels, faculty members, and administrators from a variety of institutions to explore strategies for working together to advance the mission of higher education in nationally and locally politically polarized environments. We are interested in representatives from a wide variety of institutions, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), regional colleges, community colleges, and large public institutions.

How to Apply

  • A current curriculum vitae/resume
  • Answer the following questions (up to 500 words each): 
    • In what ways do you see the local, regional, or national political climate affecting your work at your institution?
    • What do you hope to get out of your participation in the Institute?
    • What do you bring in terms of experience and/or expertise that will benefit other institute participants’ learning?

 

We are no longer accepting applications. If you are interested in receiving updates about future fellowship opportunities, please share your email here:

 

Institute Facilitators

Liliana Garces

Professor, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy, University of Texas at Austin

Liliana Garces

Liliana M. Garces is the W.K. Kellogg Professor in Community College Leadership at the University of Texas at Austin. She also holds courtesy appointments at the University of Texas School of Law and the Center for Mexican American Studies. She teaches courses on higher education law, equity and diversity in higher education, and race, law, and education. Her scholarship broadly examines how legal and education systems shape educational opportunity and create inequality for historically marginalized student populations. Her interdisciplinary work is grounded in the conceptual understanding that legal and education systems interact dynamically through the actions of organizational actors that initiate lawsuits, influence legal decision-making, and interpret and implement legal rulings within educational contexts. These actions shape education policies and practices to exacerbate or reduce social inequality. Drawing from frameworks in socio-legal studies, sociology, education, law, and political science, she employs quantitative, qualitative, and legal research methods to investigate this dynamic. Her research has been funded by the Spencer Foundation, the William T. Grant Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the W.E. Upjohn Institute.

Dr. Garces's scholarship has been published in a variety of top peer-reviewed education journals, including Educational Researcher, American Educational Research Journal, American Journal of Education, Journal of Higher Education, Educational Policy, Teachers College Record, Peabody Journal of Education, The Review of Higher Education, and Urban Review, as well as law journals, policy reports, and books. She is co-editor of Racial Equity on College Campuses: Connecting Research and Practice (SUNY Press, 2022), School Integration Matters: Research-Based Strategies to Advance Racial Equity (Teachers College Press, 2016), and Affirmative Action and Racial Equity: Considering the Fisher Case to Forge the Path Ahead (Routledge, 2015). She is on the editorial boards for Educational Researcher, Sociology of Education, and American Educational Research Journal. She is an active member of national organizations focused on education issues.

Over the years, Dr. Garces's work has been featured in National Public Radio, The New York Times, Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed., and other media outlets, and at various invited briefings at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Her research has been recognized by the American Education Research Association with the Palmer O. Johnson Memorial Award for an article of outstanding importance to education research in 2013 and by the Association for the Study of Higher Education with the 2015 Early Career Award and with the 2020 Excellence in Public Policy Higher Education Award.

Combining her expertise in law and education, Dr. Garces has represented the education community in the filing of legal briefs in U.S. Supreme Court cases that have played consequential roles in interpreting law around race-conscious policies in education. She served as counsel of record and co-wrote, with leading scholars in the field, amicus briefs joined by hundreds of social scientists in the following cases: Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District (2007) (553 signatories); Fisher v. University of Texas I (2013) (444 signatories); Fisher v. University of Texas II (2016) (823 signatories); and Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action (2014) (filed by The Civil Rights Project/Projecto Derechos Civiles at the University of California, Los Angeles). Most recently, she served as counsel and co-authored an amicus brief filed by 1,241 social scientists in support of Harvard’s defense of its race-conscious admissions policies in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.

Prior appointments before the University of Texas at Austin include: Associate Professor at The Pennsylvania State University, where she co-directed and co-founded the Center for Education and Civil Rights; Assistant Professor at The George Washington University Graduate School of Education and Human Development; and Post-Doctorate Fellow at the University of Michigan's National Poverty Center in the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. Prior to becoming faculty, she worked as a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation and the Legal Aid Society in DC, and as a judicial law clerk in federal district court. Dr. Garces holds a doctorate in education from Harvard University, a juris doctor from the University of Southern California School of Law, and a bachelor of arts from Brown University.

Elizabeth Niehaus

Associate Professor of Educational Administration, University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Elizabeth Niehaus

Dr. Elizabeth Niehaus is Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Administration at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. Her current research focuses on how we can create and improve educational environments to facilitate student learning and development in higher education, with a particular emphasis on the intersections of issues of free speech, academic freedom, and campus climate. Dr. Niehaus’s other research interests include study abroad, international education, graduate student and faculty professional development, and service-learning programs. At the University of Nebraska – Lincoln, Dr. Niehaus teaches courses on diversity issues in higher education, college student development, research methods, and free speech and campus climate.

Dr. Niehaus earned her Bachelor’s degree in Linguistics from the University of Virginia, her Master’s degree in American Culture Studies from Washington University in St. Louis, and her PhD in College Student Personnel Administration from the University of Maryland, College Park. She has published her research in a wide variety of scholarly and practitioner-oriented outlets, including the Journal of College Student Development, The Journal of Higher Education, the Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, and Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad. She has received a number of grants to further her research on alternative breaks, short-term study abroad, and tertiary student engagement and development in Trinidad and Tobago, served as a 2020-2021 Fellow with the UC National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement, and was a recipient of the 2017 Excellence in International Research and Service to the International Community Awards from ACPA: College Student Educators International.

Cecilia Orphan

Associate Professor of Higher Education, University of Denver and Director of Partnerships for the Alliance for Research on Regional Colleges (AARC)

Cecilia Orphan

Cecilia Orphan, Ph.D., is an associate professor of Higher Education at the University of Denver and Director of Partnerships for the Alliance for Research on Regional Colleges. Dr. Orphan’s research has been funded by the Spencer Foundation, the Ascendium Education Group, and the Joyce Foundation. She has been quoted by CBS, The Chronicle for Higher Education, InsideHigherEd, Open Campus, and Newsy, among other media outlets. From 2006-2011, she directed the American Democracy Project, a national civic engagement initiative of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. Dr. Orphan's research agenda is informed by her experiences as a working class, first-generation college student who received maximum Pell grants to attend college. She is personally familiar with the transformative nature of access institutions having attended Linn Benton Community College and Portland State University, a regional public university in Oregon. Simply put, attending these institutions changed the trajectory of her life and she believes in the power of access institutions to promote racial and economic justice and democracy. Dr. Orphan holds a Ph.D. in higher education from the University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Portland State University.

Brian Soucek

Professor of Law and Chancellor's Fellow, UC Davis

Brian Soucek

Brian Soucek is a graduate of Boston College (B.A., Philosophy and Economics); Columbia University (Ph.D., Philosophy), where he was awarded the Core Preceptor Prize for his teaching; and Yale Law School (J.D.), where he was Comments Editor for the Yale Law Journal, a Coker Fellow in Procedure and won the Munson Prize for his work in the school’s immigration clinic. Prior to law school, Soucek taught for three years in the Humanities Collegiate Division and Philosophy Department at the University of Chicago, where he was Collegiate Assistant Professor and Co-Chair of the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts. After law school, he clerked for the late Mark R. Kravitz, United States District Judge for the District of Connecticut, and the Hon. Guido Calabresi of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

Professor Soucek’s work has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Sixth and Seventh Circuits, referenced and excerpted in leading casebooks in Immigration Law, Civil Procedure, and Sexual Orientation Law, discussed by the Wall Street Journal, and honored with the Dukeminier Award from UCLA’s Williams Institute for the year’s best article on sexual orientation and gender identity law. Professor’s Soucek’s published work spans from constitutional and statutory anti discrimination law to refugee/asylum law to research at the intersection of law and aesthetics. Since coming to UC Davis School of Law in Fall 2013, Professor Soucek has taught Constitutional Law II: Equal Protection and the First Amendment; Civil Procedure; Antidiscrimination Law; Asylum and Refugee Law; Art Law; and an undergraduate First Year Seminar on Free Expression.

Professor Soucek has recently served as Chair of the University of California’s system-wide Committee on Academic Freedom, been a Fellow with UC’s National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement, and led the Association of American Law Schools’ Section on Law and the Humanities. He is currently a Trustee of the American Society for Aesthetics.

Emerson Sykes

Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project

Emerson Sykes

Emerson is a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project where he focuses on First Amendment free speech protections. From 2019-2020, he was also host of At Liberty, the ACLU’s weekly podcast.

Prior to joining the ACLU in 2018, he was a legal advisor for Africa at the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL). In that role, he provided technical legal assistance to civil society leaders, government officials, law students, and other stakeholders from across Africa to improve the legal framework protecting the freedom of association, assembly, and expression on the regional and national levels. From 2012-13, he served as assistant general counsel to the New York City Council, where he worked to increase transparency for council members’ discretionary spending, and contributed to the council’s friend-of-the-court brief against the NYPD’s “Stop and Frisk” program. In 2011, Emerson was a senior policy fellow in the office of a Member of Parliament in Ghana. Emerson previously conducted research and wrote about U.S. foreign policy for The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank, and worked for the National Democratic Institute’s Central and West Africa Team.

Emerson holds a J.D. from the New York University School of Law, where he was a Root-Tilden-Kern scholar for public interest law, and a Master of Public Affairs degree from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. He earned his undergraduate degree in political science at Stanford.

Our sixth class of Fellows represents professors, staff and graduate students from a broad range of disciplines and backgrounds, selected from the largest number of fellowship applications received to date. This cohort’s research focuses on higher education’s role in preparing scientifically literate voters, diversity professionals’ views on political bans and marginalized students’ experiences with biased and hateful speech, among other topics. Their projects include developing educational materials and programs that can serve as a roadmap to safeguarding and encouraging the robust exchange of ideas while simultaneously upholding the institutional values of equity and inclusion.

Learn more about the 2023-2024 class of Fellows and their work by watching this brief video:

https://freespeechcenter.universityofcalifornia.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/2023_24_national_center_for_free_speech_fellows_v1-720p.mp4

Susan Balter-Reitz & Michael Bruner

Professor of Communication, Montana State University Billings; Professor of Communication Studies, University of Nevada Las Vegas

Research Title: "The Performance of Argument in University Free Speech Legislation: Lessons for University Leadership in Public Communication"

Read and download Susan and Michael’s work

Susan Balter-Reitz & Michael Bruner

Susan Balter-Reitz is a Professor of Communication at Montana State University Billings. Balter-Reitz has been studying the limits of the First Amendment for the last 30 years, and she has published broadly on issues related to Freedom of Expression. Her work is informed by argumentation theory and conceptions of the public. Balter-Reitz has twice been nominated for the Franklyn Haiman award given by the National Communication Association to honor distinguished scholarship in Freedom of Expression; the work she collaborated on with Michael Bruner won this award in 2015.

Michael Lane Bruner (a.k.a. M. Lane Bruner) is Professor of Communication Studies and Affiliate Professor of Public Policy at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, with a well-established reputation for research in freedom of speech and civic engagement. Bruner’s work in these areas, spanning more than two decades, focuses primarily on legal rulings and legislation that appear on the surface to protect and expand free speech and citizen engagement when in fact they undermine the very public reason upon which sound legal and policy decisions are based. Bruner also ensures that his work on responsible public speech and civic engagement is applied. To that end, he teaches policy development and communication to policy professionals at the doctoral level and collaborative debate at the undergraduate level.

Over the last decade, Balter-Reitz and Bruner have been concerned with the attacks on public colleges and universities under the guise of protecting free expression. Examples include their 2011-2012 work, on the Westboro Baptist Church’s influence on Supreme Court rulings related to free speech and public spectacle, their 2016-2017 research on the cynical manipulation of university free speech rules by provocateurs such as Milo Yiannopoulous, and their most recent work on the passage of FORUM Acts in the United States presented at the National Communication Association Conference in 2022.

Kaleb Briscoe

Assistant Professor, University of Oklahoma

Research Title: "Dismantling DEI in Higher Education: An Analysis of How Diversity Professionals View Political Bans"

Read and download Kaleb's work

Kaleb Briscoe

Kaleb L. Briscoe, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of Adult and Higher Education in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Oklahoma, where she joined the faculty in August 2023. She previously served as an assistant professor of Higher Education Leadership at Mississippi State University.

Her work utilizes critical theories and methods to describe structural inequities within organizations. Her research more broadly speaks to understanding issues of race, racism, and racialized incidents at predominantly white institutions (PWIs). Additionally, her work seeks to understand administrators, explicitly university presidents’ responses to race and racism, by challenging their use of anti-blackness and non- performative rhetoric. She uses qualitative methodological approaches such as narrative inquiry, case study, and critical race methodology to understand these essential issues in postsecondary education spaces. Dr. Veronica Jones Baldwin and Dr. Briscoe received a Spencer Foundation Small Research Grant for their project Resistance or Racism? Unpacking Critical Race Theory Bans in a Sociopolitical Era of Anti-Racism. This two-part project: (1) analyzes the language used in current legislation banning CRT; and (2) captures the narratives of faculty that use CRT in their teaching, research, and service to understand how they navigate the political climate/recent legislative attempts to ban CRT. Ultimately, this work has the potential to shape higher education policy, influencing how institutional actors adapt to the political climate while advancing anti- racist practices.

Her work has also challenged how administrators and students treat staff members in higher education and student affairs, explicitly her project on “Student Affairs Professionals’ Experiences with Campus Racial Climate at PWIs” has garnered national recognition and grants with ACPA-College Student Educators International and NASPA– Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education. This scholarship advances the argument that without accounting for how hostile campus racial climates negatively affect SAPs, there will be a status quo mentality when addressing racialized incidents. Through this work, Dr. Briscoe has also advanced arguments on how race and politics, including the severity of the political climate faced during the Trump administration, has complicated student affairs professionals’ roles in higher education. She has also taught undergraduate and graduate classes on Higher Education Environments, Diversity, Globalization, and the College Student, Critical Race Theory in Education, Race, Racism, and Racialized Incidents in Higher Education, all of which inform this proposed project. Finally, Dr. Briscoe has previously served as a mid-level student affairs professional overseeing student involvement, diversity, and multicultural affairs.

Eliza Epstein

Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Texas at Austin

Research Title: "Campus Civic Engagement during Turbulent Times: Student Responses to State Based Attacks on DEI and Academic Freedom"

Read and download Eliza's work

Eliza Epstein

Eliza is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas at Austin studying liberatory education policy and law-based threats to free expression and inclusion. She is drawn to inquiry projects that ask questions about educational purpose and ground themselves in deep praxis. One recent study tracked the stewardship of four secondary Ethnic Studies courses from local, district-level design along their journey to inclusion within Texas’s state-level Social Studies course offerings. Guided by interviews with policymakers, scholars, activists, and district staff, as well as document analysis and observations of public hearings, this critical qualitative case study observed the viability of state-level policy institutionalization for radically rooted Ethnic Studies projects. She found that Ethnic Studies policy design requires a relational praxis and that the theories, epistemologies, and disciplinary knowledge of study participants inform their strategic engagement with the state and the coloniality of schooling. A current project also looks at the relationship between public education and the state, observing the ways that threats to free expression impact public higher education faculty whose work is focused on racial equity and inclusion. This project aims to inform university actors and external allies about strategies to resist attacks on academic freedom and to foster authentically inclusive campus climates.

Before entering academia, Eliza spent a decade as a film editor in Los Angeles, crafting commercials, documentary films, trailers, and other visual content. She continues this work today, recently serving as a consulting producer on the critically acclaimed 2022 documentary The Business of Birth Control. Eliza carried her creative career knowledge into her role as a high school English teacher and track and field coach at a Southern California high school where she engaged in relational learning–working in the classroom and running alongside her students.

For the last seven years, she has rooted herself in the Austin, TX while completing her doctoral studies, volunteering for Academia Cuauhtli, a culturally revitalizing Saturday school/third space; co- founding and serving as a core organizer for the Ethnic Studies Network of Texas, a grassroots community working in solidarity to expand Ethnic Studies courses; spending hundreds of hours in the Capitol, Austin City Council, school board meetings, and at the State Board of Education advocating for humanizing and liberatory public education and public spaces; and planting the seeds for a community run Equity Collective at her children’s school. Her work has been published in top tier journals, but she is most happy when her 9-year-old reads it and asks questions (though frequently it’s more of a comment...)

Eliza holds an MA in Social Science and Comparative Education from UCLA; a Secondary Teaching Credential from Cal State Northridge; and a BA in Spanish and History from Rutgers University, as well as enrolling in a number of community college courses. While she spent 9th-12th grade at a private boarding school, she is dedicated to protecting and cultivating public education. While she truly wants the best for her own kids, she strives to live in ways that build the best future for all children.

Frank Fernandez

Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Research Title: "Can Universities Support Civic Engagement through Science Literacy?"

Read and download Frank's work

Frank Fernandez

I am an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at University of Wisconsin, Madison. Broadly, my work considers the role that higher education fulfills in society. In terms of specific topics, I write about educational policy issues, racial equity issues, as well as academic freedom, student speech issues, and civic engagement. When I write about civic engagement, I empirically examine specific curricular or co-curricular experiences that influence political efficacy, voter information, voter registration, and voter turnout.

Nina Flores — Senior Fellow

Associate Professor, California State University Long Beach

Research Title: "Resources for Supporting Faculty and Staff During Incidents of Targeted Harassment"

Read and download Nina's work

Nina Flores — Senior Fellow

Dr. Flores is proud to be a lifelong product of the California public education system, from K- 12 to her PhD in Urban Planning from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. She is an Associate Professor at California State University Long Beach in the interdisciplinary master’s program in Equity, Education & Social Justice. In this role, she trains students as emerging scholars and practitioners focused on justice, power, and resistance. She draws on current and community events to anchor academic ideas in everyday life and uses critical pedagogies to engage students in deep analyses of social and educational inequities from the local to the global.

In her research, Dr. Flores studies sex and gender-based harassment experienced online, in public spaces, and at academic conferences. Her contributions explore a range of topics including gendered public space, street harassment, Title IX, and the targeted harassment of faculty by members of the public. She is committed to public scholarship and civic engagement, and in her previous research as a Fellow with the UC National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement she examined the ways in which targeted harassment may silence faculty, leading to self-censorship. Most recently, she completed a sex educator certification, noting the urgent need for accurate, non-shaming, justice-based sex education programming as a component of campus sexual assault prevention efforts.

Dr. Flores is a past fellow with The OpEd Project and her public writing has been featured in national outlets such as The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, Ms. Magazine Blog, YES! Magazine and Progressive Planning Magazine. Before returning to academia, Dr. Flores worked as a political messaging strategist and jury consultant, conducting focus group research for legal cases and political campaigns in more than thirty states.

Sara Johnson

Assistant Professor, Tufts University

Research Title: "Role Models as a Motivator of College Students’ Civic Engagement"

Read and download Sara's work

Sara Johnson

I received my doctorate in Human Development and Family Studies from the University of Connecticut, and then completed postdoctoral training at the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development at Tufts University. I have been an Assistant Professor in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development since 2016. My work has focused on positive development among adolescents and young adults; More specifically, much of my research has addressed the civic-related experiences of college students, including identifying patterns of participation in different types of actions (Johnson et al., 2014), types of life goals that support civic engagement (Johnson et al., 2018), and the relationship between dimensions of efficacy and participation in different types of civic actions (Gee & Johnson, 2022). I have also done research with adolescents related to their general role models (Johnson et al., 2016; Hammond et al., 2022). Although my work has primarily been quantitative in nature, several projects have involved in-depth interviews (e.g., Hershberg & Johnson, 2019), which I am excited to use again in this project.

Alex Kappus

Account Executive for Student Success, Credo Higher Education Consulting

Research Title: "Cultivating a Culture of Civic Engagement and Democratic Learning: Examining Institutional Responses to the California Student Civic and Voter Empowerment Act (AB 963)"

Read and download Alex's work

Alex Kappus

Alex Kappus brings over 15 years of leadership experience in higher education, serving in a variety of institutional contexts in four different states and in several student development functional areas including residence life, new student and family programs, financial aid, leadership development, and student success. He currently serves as the Account Executive for Student Success with Credo Higher Education Consulting where he champions student success through the firm’s signature student retention initiative Moving the Needle. In his previous role as Senior Director for Student Success at NC State, he served on the university’s Pack the Polls Coalition, where he and his colleagues proposed, designed, and launched the 2022 Civic Education Challenge, a campus-wide effort to champion civic engagement.

A devoted scholar-practitioner, Alex’s research and scholarly writing focus on college students' nonpartisan political engagement and assessment of programs and services in higher education. His dissertation examined the lived experiences of college students involved in nonpartisan political engagement through the Campus Vote Project (campusvoteproject.org) during the 2020 election season. His expertise in nonpartisan political engagement in higher education is particularly relevant to advancing civic engagement which is increasingly scrutinized as a partisan political issue instead of one core to the civic mission of colleges and universities. He received a Ph.D. in Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education from Michigan State University, an M.Ed. in College Student Affairs Administration from the University of Georgia, and a B.A. in Political Science from Emory University.

Raquel Rall

Associate Dean of Strategic Initiatives, UC Riverside

Research Title: "The Reach of Civic Engagement: The Impact of Student Trustees on Campus and Beyond"

Read and download Raquel's work

Raquel Rall

Raquel M. Rall is an Associate Professor and Faculty Chair in the School of Education at UC Riverside. Before her appointment at UCR, she was a UC Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow and Assistant Research Professor at the University of Southern California (USC). She has a Ph.D. in urban education policy from USC and degrees in Human Biology and African and African American Studies from Stanford. Her research centers postsecondary leadership and governance. Of particular interest to Rall is research that helps further illuminate the centrality of concepts like equity, diversity, and inclusion in postsecondary decision-making. With her research, teaching, and service, Rall centers equity-mindedness to push issues of leadership and decision-making from the periphery to the core to better understand how the decisions and decision-makers impact outcomes in higher education. At UCR, she teaches courses like Critical Issues in Higher Education, Higher Education Governance, and Black Brilliance Matters. At the system level, she serves on the UC Black Administrator’s Council and is the inaugural convener of the UC Online Advisory Council. She was recently tenured in the UC Riverside School of Education—the first Black woman to do so in the School of Education.

Rall has presented her work at national conferences such as the Association for the Study of Higher Education, the American Educational Research Association, the American Council of Education, and the Association of Governing Boards. The Spencer Foundation, the College Futures Foundation, and the Gates Foundation have funded her research. She has published in academic journals such as the Journal of Negro Education, Teachers College Record, Harvard Educational Review, Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, and the Journal of Higher Education.

Rall is also an engaged community leader. She is active on school site councils, parent-teacher associations, and nonprofit organizations. Rall is a board member for the Council of African American Parents and is the program director for the Black Community Education Promise Program. The connections she has made on campuses and beyond help her to understand the breadth and reach of personal relationships and how those relationships can change the trajectory of individuals and communities. Additionally, in the opportunities she has had interacting with leaders, she has noted that many are left out of pivotal discussions and decisions. Fittingly, Rall proposes a project that maps the reach of civic engagement of key decision-makers in higher education. Rall is a national expert whose work on decision-making and equity is advancing higher education in novel ways. The project aims delineated in this submission would continue to move the knowledge and understanding of the understudied yet critical topic of governance to center stage in higher education.

Ashley Robinson

Assistant Professor of Higher Education, Fairleigh Dickinson University

Research Title: "Institutional Dismissal and Betrayal in the Name of Free Speech: Student Stories of Reporting Bias"

Read and download Ashley's work

Ashley Robinson

Ashley N. Robinson, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education in the Sammartino School of Education at Fairleigh Dickinson University. She graduated with a Ph.D. in Leadership and Education Policy from the University of Connecticut and with an M.Ed. in Student Development in Higher Education and a B.A. in English, both from the University of Maine. Prior to pursuing an academic career, she worked professionally in higher education for six years in residential life and housing. Her work is strongly informed by both her experience as a student affairs educator and her background as an academic labor organizer.

Dr. Robinson’s research focuses on examining higher education policies and practices to understand new possibilities for leaders and educators to create more just and equitable organizations and institutions. Dr. Robinson uses critical qualitative methods to center frontline administrators’ and students’ experiences with institutional policies and practices related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. She works primarily in the scholarly areas of critical study of whiteness and institutional ethnography. Dr. Robinson has published several articles and book chapters in outlets including the Journal of Critical Studies in Education, the Journal of College Student Development, and About Campus and has presented her emerging research widely at conferences such as NASPA, ACPA, ASHE, and AERA.

Our fifth class of Fellows represents professors, practitioners and graduate students from a broad range of disciplines and backgrounds, and includes our inaugural Senior Fellow and first undergraduate Fellow. This cohort will research complex topics such as the perceptions and attitudes of international students, threats to academic freedom from state legislatures, and the racial and gender tropes Black women encounter while exercising free expression. Their projects will include developing educational materials and programs that can serve as a roadmap to safeguarding and encouraging the robust exchange of ideas while simultaneously upholding the institutional values of equity and inclusion.

Learn more about the 2022-2023 class of Fellows and their work by watching this brief video:

Leslie Garvin

Executive Director, North Carolina Campus Engagement

Research Title: "Disrupting Mis & Dis-Information in the University Setting"

Read and download Leslie’s work

Leslie Garvin

Leslie Garvin is the Executive Director of North Carolina Campus Engagement, a collaborative network of 38 colleges & universities committed to preparing students for civic and social responsibility, partnering with communities for positive change, and strengthening democracy. In this role she facilitates faculty and staff professional development, builds strategic partnerships to strengthen and expand higher education community and civic engagement, and leads the elections & democracy and food insecurity initiatives. A skilled facilitator, she has trained over 400 hundred individuals in the National Issues Forum deliberative dialogue method and Theater of the Oppressed. Garvin is also a Collaborative Discussion Coach and Braver Angels moderator.

Garvin has co-authored chapters in Critical Intersections In Contemporary Curriculum & Pedagogy (Info Age Publishing, 2018) and Practical Wisdom for Conducting Research on Service Learning: Pursuing Quality and Purpose (Stylus Publishing, 2019). She served as an author and editor for the Primer on Benefits and Value of Civic and Community Engagement in Higher Education (2021).

Garvin holds a Master of Social Work with a concentration in social and economic development and a specialization in management, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in political science and African-American Studies, both from Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to joining NCCC in 2005, she worked in the community leadership development and interfaith service fields. She serves on the Board of Directors of the National Issues Forum and co-chairs the State Summits & Networks Subcommittee of the Students Learn Students Vote Coalition.

Neal Hutchens & Brandi Hephner LaBanc

Professor of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation, University of Kentucky; Vice President for Student Engagement and Enrollment Services, Old Dominion University

Research Title: "Social Media: The Real Campus Speech Zone"

Read and download Neal & Brandi's work

Neal Hutchens & Brandi Hephner LaBanc

Dr. Hutchens currently serves as a Professor of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation at the University of Kentucky. He previously served as Professor and Associate Chair in the University of Mississippi School of Education’s Department of Higher Education and as inaugural chair for the Department of Higher Education. He was also an Affiliated Faculty in the University of Mississippi School of Law. Hutchens earned his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland and his J.D. from the University of Alabama School of Law. His research focuses on legal and policy issues in higher education, with a key strand of his scholarship centered on free speech and academic freedom.

Dr. Hephner LaBanc currently serves as Vice President for Student Engagement and Enrollment Services at Old Dominion University. She previously served as the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and Campus Life at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Professor in the Higher Education program. With over 25 years of experience in higher education, she has served as Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and Professor of Higher Education at the University of Mississippi, and held multiple administrative roles at Northern Illinois University, Arizona State University, University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Baldwin-Wallace College, and The University of Akron.

Krystal-Gayle O'Neill

Ph.D. Candidate, Global Governance and Human Security, University of Massachusetts - Boston

Research Title: "'Excuse me, I'm speaking': Reconceptualizing Freedom of Speech Through a Black Feminist Lens"

Read and download Krystal-Gayle’s work

Krystal-Gayle O'Neill

Krystal-Gayle O'Neill (She/Her) is a Ph.D. candidate in the Global Governance and Human Security program in the Department of Conflict Resolution, Human Security and Global Governance, at the University of Massachusetts Boston’s McCormack Graduate School. She is also an Adam Smith and Dan Lavoie Fellow at The Mercatus Center, George Mason University. She is also the President of the UMass Boston Graduate Student Assembly (GSA). She is from St. Catherine, Jamaica and holds a B.Ed. (Business and Computer Studies) from the University of Technology, Jamaica, an MBA and MS in College Student Affairs (Conflict Resolution concentration) from Nova Southeastern University (Davie, Fl), an M. Phil (Social Sciences) from Wesleyan University (Middletown, CT) and an MA in Conflict Resolution (UMass Boston). Her research interests include: Gender and Sexuality, Post-colonization in Latin America and the Caribbean, Inter/Intragroup Dialogues and Restorative and Social Justice practices. She has taught classes around race, gender and sexuality, global gender politics, global politics and navigating cross cultural conflict at UMass Boston and Babson College.

Amna Khalid & Jeff Snyder

Associate Professor, Department of History, Carleton College; Associate Professor, Department of Educational Studies, Carleton College

Research Title: "Anti-CRT Bills Come to Campus: Documenting and Analyzing Emerging Threats to Free Expression and Academic Freedom from State Legislatures"

Read and download Amna & Jeff’s work

Amna Khalid & Jeff Snyder

Amna Khalid is Associate Professor in the Department of History at Carleton College, where she specializes in South Asian history. She has written multiple book chapters on the history of public health in nineteenth-century India. Born in Pakistan, Khalid completed her Bachelor's Degree at Lahore University of Management Sciences, continuing on to earn an M.Phil. in Development Studies and a D.Phil. in History from the University of Oxford. Growing up under a series of military dictatorships, Khalid has a strong interest in censorship and free expression. In 2020/21, she served as the inaugural John Stuart Mill Faculty Fellow at Heterodox Academy. A founding member of the Academic Freedom Alliance, she currently hosts a podcast called "Banished," which explores threats to free expression in higher education and beyond.

Jeff Snyder is Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Studies at Carleton College, where his research and teaching focus on past and present educational policy and school reform movements. A Carleton alumnus, Snyder earned an EdM in Learning and Teaching from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a PhD in the History of Education from New York University. Snyder’s work explores questions about race, national identity and the purpose of public education in a diverse, democratic society. He is the author of the 2018 book, Making Black History: The Color Line, Culture and Race in the Age of Jim Crow. Snyder has a keen interest in issues of academic freedom and free expression, especially as they relate to liberal arts education.

Khalid and Snyder--separately and together--speak frequently on academic freedom and free speech at college and universities as well as at professional conferences. Their writing on these topics--solo and co-authored--has appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education, the New Republic and the Washington Post, among other publications.

Jacqueline Pedota

Ph.D. Candidate, Educational Leadership and Policy, The University of Texas at Austin

Research Title: "How Faculty Contend with Threats to Academic Freedom and Racial Inclusion"

Read and download Jackie’s work

Jacqueline Pedota

Jackie is a doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin within the Educational Leadership and Policy department and works as a Graduate Research Assistant under the supervision of Dr. Liliana Garces. She currently works on a project, funded by the Spencer Foundation, that examines how law-based pressures, such as state legislation related to free speech, shape campus-wide inclusion policy. Prior to pursuing her PhD, Jackie received her M.Ed. from the University of Texas at Austin and her B.S. in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation from the University of Florida. She has had a wealth of professional experiences across the P-20 educational pipeline including roles in K-12 instruction, non-profit management, educational technology, and higher education administration.

As a daughter of Cuban immigrants, Jackie’s research focuses on equity and access in higher education and the institutionalization of diversity initiatives through a historical and organizational lens. Her most recent funded project examines a Latino Campus Cultural Center and how through racialized organizational structures and policies, there is ultimately a cost for students, staff, and the broader community when institutionalizing diversity initiatives and spaces.

Jackie’s work as an interdisciplinary scholar utilizes public scholarship, like oral history, and community-based research to democratize knowledge and disrupt powers and structures historically present within knowledge production and dissemination. She serves as the Managing Editor for the US Latina & Latino Oral History Journal and is a Graduate Student Member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice. Her work has been recognized at major education and interdisciplinary conferences such as the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the Oral History Association (OHA), the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), and the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS).

Danny Shaha

Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs, Pennsylvania State University

Research Title: "Universities' Response to Offensive and Bias-Related Speech and Behaviors"

Read and download Danny’s work

Danny Shaha

Danny Shaha received his Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Texas A&M University, his Master of Arts in College Student Personnel from Bowling Green State University, and his Doctorate of Education in Educational Leadership from Lamar University.

Since the summer of 2017, Danny has served as an Assistant Vice President (AVP) for Student Affairs at Penn State University in State College, PA. In this capacity, he supervises the University’s offices of Student Conduct, Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Response, Student Care and Advocacy, Fraternity and Sorority Compliance, Off Campus Student Support, Respondent Support, and Student Legal Services. He also co-chairs the University's Behavioral Threat Management Team and holds responsibility for the University’s response to student-related crises and bias-related incidents. Danny also served as the University’s Interim Title IX Coordinator from 2017 to 2018.

Prior to the AVP role, Danny served as the Senior Director of the Office of Student Conduct (OSC) at Penn State for seven years. In this role, he oversaw the administration of the University’s conduct process at its primary campus in University Park, PA, as well as its 22 additional campuses, including its two law schools and medical school, across the Commonwealth and online, with a total enrollment of approximately 99,000 students. While serving as Senior Director of OSC, from January of 2012 to July of 2017, he served as a Deputy Title IX Coordinator at the University, and from November of 2015 to July of 2017, Danny served as the Interim Director of the University’s Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life.

Prior to joining Penn State, Danny worked in different capacities at The Ohio State University, Texas A&M University, and the College of William and Mary. He also served as a Special Agent in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, specializing in counterterrorism and counterintelligence.

Emma Tolliver

Undergrad Student, English and Political Science - Public Service, UC Davis

Research Title: "Undergraduate Student Advocacy in the University of California System: a Handbook"

Read and download Emma’s work

Emma Tolliver

Emma Tolliver is an undergraduate student at the University of California, Davis. She is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in English and Political Science - Public Service with a minor in Human Rights Studies. Tolliver is a member of and peer mentor for UC Davis’s University Honors Program (UHP), a commissioner for the Gender and Sexuality Commission - Associated Students of UC Davis (GASC-ASUCD), and the editor-in-chief of Davis Journal of Legal Studies (DJLS). Tolliver is a two-time recipient of the UC National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement “Valuing Open and Inclusive Conversation and Engagement” (VOICE) Initiative Award, which she received for her work as editor-in-chief of DJLS.

Tolliver is a published author. Her published works include academic research papers, poetry, short prose, and a novel. Her most recent publication, an academic research paper entitled "Home (Not) Free: an Evaluation of Housing Costs and California State University (CSU) Graduation Rates", was published in August 2021 in Vol. 32 of Prized Writing, UC Davis’s annual publication consisting of exemplary undergraduate writing from across the disciplines.

Tolliver plans to attend law school after her graduation from UC Davis in June 2023; her ambition is to become a prosecutor within a Victim Services Department and to work on cases related to human trafficking and gender-based violence.

Elizabeth Niehaus - Senior Fellow

Associate Professor, Educational Administration, University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Research Title: "Beyond the Moral Panic of 'Student Self-Censorship'”

Read and download Elizabeth’s work

Elizabeth Niehaus - Senior Fellow

Dr. Elizabeth Niehaus is Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Administration at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. Her current research focuses on how we can create and improve educational environments to facilitate student learning and development in higher education, with a particular emphasis on the intersections of issues of free speech, academic freedom, and campus climate. Dr. Niehaus’s other research interests include study abroad, international education, graduate student and faculty professional development, and service-learning programs. At the University of Nebraska – Lincoln, Dr. Niehaus teaches courses on diversity issues in higher education, college student development, research methods, and free speech and campus climate.

Dr. Niehaus earned her Bachelor’s degree in Linguistics from the University of Virginia, her Master’s degree in American Culture Studies from Washington University in St. Louis, and her PhD in College Student Personnel Administration from the University of Maryland, College Park. She has published her research in a wide variety of scholarly and practitioner-oriented outlets, including the Journal of College Student Development, The Journal of Higher Education, the Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, and Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad. She has received a number of grants to further her research on alternative breaks, short-term study abroad, and tertiary student engagement and development in Trinidad and Tobago, served as a 2020-2021 Fellow with the UC National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement, and was a recipient of the 2017 Excellence in International Research and Service to the International Community Awards from ACPA: College Student Educators International.

Event Details

Colleges and universities are often called upon to speak about events taking place inside and outside of the campus community. Deciding if and when to do so is a complicated calculation: who should speak? What should the message say? What will the impact be?

On Tuesday, March 23rd, Cerri Banks, 2020-2021 Center Fellow and dean of students & vice president for student affairs at Skidmore College, and Sigal Ben-Porath, Professor of Education at University of Pennsylvania had a dynamic conversation about these and other questions.



Resources

    • “Free Speech on Campus” by Sigal R. Ben-Porath
    • Interview with Sigal R. Ben-Porath: “Free speech advocate discusses growing talk of ‘cancel culture’“

    • “What Snowflakes Get Right: Free Speech, Truth, and Equality on Campus” by Ulrich Baer

Speakers

Cerri Banks

Dean of Students and VP for Student Affairs, Skidmore College; 2020-2021 Fellow, UC National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement

Dr. Cerri Banks is the dean of students and vice president for student affairs at Skidmore College since August 1, 2016.  Previously, she served as vice president for student affairs and dean of the college at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts and as the dean of William Smith College at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva NY.

In her role at Skidmore Banks is responsible for the academic and social progress of students. She oversees 134 employees and all offices in Student Affairs, including athletics, campus life and engagement, health and wellness, residential life, career development, student diversity programs, and student academic services.  

Banks received her Ph.D. in Cultural Foundations of Education and a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Women’s Studies, both from Syracuse University and specializes in sociology of education, cultural studies, multicultural education, and qualitative research.  Committed to educational reform and issues of inclusion, Banks draws from educational theory, feminist theory, and critical race theory in her work as the dean and in her teaching, research and writing.  Her book Black Women Undergraduates, Cultural Capital and College Success (Peter Lang, 2009) expands the theoretical concept of cultural capital and provides practical ways colleges and universities can recognize and utilize the cultural capital of all students.  She is also the co-author of the edited text, Teaching, Learning and Intersecting Identities in Higher Education (Peter Lang, 2012).  This book utilizes voices of scholars and students from a range of academic disciplines to analyze the ways divergent identities and experiences infiltrate the classroom. Her newest project entitled, “No Justice! No Peace! College Student Activism, Race Relations and Media Cultures” looks at the implications of the changing tides of student activism for college campuses. Banks has produced scores of articles, book chapters, and presentations on culturally relevancy, identity and learning, and other subjects.

Active in key higher-education organizations over the course of her career, Banks has won a wide array of honors, awards, and scholarships. A graduate of Monroe Community College before transferring to Syracuse University, she was inducted into Monroe’s Hall of Fame.


Sigal Ben-Porath

Professor of Education, University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Ben-Porath received her doctorate in political philosophy from Tel Aviv University in 2000. She was awarded two successive Tel Aviv University President’s postdoctoral grants. In 2001-2004, she was a postdoctoral research associate at the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University.

Dr. Ben-Porath has been teaching at Penn GSE since 2004. She is an associate member of the political science department and the philosophy department at Penn. She served as a special assistant to the university president, and as chair of the faculty advisory board to Penn Press. She is executive committee member of the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy. In 2012-2013 she was affiliated with the Safra Center for Ethics at Tel Aviv University, and in 2020-2021 she was a fellow in residence at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard.

Dr. Ben-Porath is interested in democratic theory and practice, and studies the ways institutions like schools and colleges can sustain and advance democracy. Her areas of expertise include philosophy of education and political philosophy. Her books include Making Up Our Mind: What School Choice is Really About (2019), Free Speech on Campus (2017) and Varieties of Sovereignty and Citizenship (2012), as well as Tough Choices: Structured Paternalism and the Landscape of Choice (2010) and Citizenship under Fire: Democratic Education in Times of Conflict (2006). She is currently continuing her work on campus free speech, and is researching the promise of civic dialogue in schools and colleges.


Michelle Deutchman

Executive Director, UC National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement

Michelle N. Deutchman is the inaugural Executive Director of the UC National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement. Formed by the UC Office of the President, the Center explores how the fundamental democratic and academic principles of free speech and civic engagement should enrich the discovery and transmission of knowledge in America’s colleges and universities.

 In this role, Deutchman oversees a multidisciplinary national fellowship program and works across all 10 UC campuses to study and shape national discourse about free speech.

Before joining the Center, Deutchman served as Western States Civil Rights Counsel and National Campus Counsel for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a non-profit organization that has been a leader in combating bigotry, prejudice and anti-Semitism for over a century. As National Campus Counsel, Ms. Deutchman focused on emerging trends and challenges pertaining to free expression at colleges and universities. She trained campus stakeholders – including administrators and law enforcement – on how to safeguard free speech at universities while simultaneously maintaining a safe and inclusive campus climate.

Deutchman teaches a course on contemporary free exercise issues at UCLA School of Law.

She earned her Juris Doctor from University of Southern California Law Center, where she graduated Order of the Coif. She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of University of California at Berkeley and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science.

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